Kaleo San Diego Church

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I have a bit of useless information if you're interested. I can tell you the name of every store in every mall in San Diego that does business directly across from every Victoria 's Secret. Yep, that's right. I'm the proud owner of this nifty little intellectual capital and I don't care who knows it!

Many years ago, I was a legalist. Pure and simple, I attempted to gain righteousness through a standard of morality and prudishness that I thought would impress God, and certainly did no damage to the image I was attempting to present. What I know realize is how unrighteous my wicked little heart was for me to even come to such a conclusion, proving how little I knew about God and His Grace.

As I have learned more and more about the scandalous nature of His grace and how very much I am in need of it for any claim to be righteous before God, I have begun the process of rethinking some of my hypocritical moral paradoxes. One memory which always fascinates me was my desire to get everyone around me to stop cursing. Now, noble as it was, it was unfortunately invalidated because the young ladies whose vernacular I was attempting to reform were the same young ladies that I attempted to give an extended tour of my apartment, with the last stop at my bedroom. It's always amazing to me how easy it is to call someone to a moral standard that we are able to conquer, and yet be so blind to the moral aberrations which we are not as quick to discard. Had someone attempted to reform my sexual activities while living in Los Angeles, I would have labeled them a legalist or ever worse…Victorian!

You see, my idea of what it mean to be Victorian was defined by the culture I found myself living in rather than an informed and historical view of the word.

In our day, Victorianism is an insult we hurl at someone to show how narrow-minded and prudish someone is with their morals. However, James Lincoln Collier in his book “ The Rise of Selfishness in America ,” defines the word appropriately as the era of a conscious ideal of order and decency felt in England and America between 1830 and 1910 that manifested itself in a new gentility, religious fervor, civic activism against vice, and an effort to control sexual impulses. “How did America turn from a social code in which self-restraint was a cardinal virtue to one in which gratification was the norm?” asks Collier.

I think we can trace several factors which contributed to this social experiment. Most Americans, post Revolution, saw themselves as a special people whom God had favored. This was helped by the revolt waged against the British which was won in spite of insurmountable odds. We were now on a land which we could birth a raise a different kind of nation.

Victorian & Victoria's Secret

We wanted a new kind of European aristocracy that didn't leave our countrymen starving. America wanted a new kind of leader that was not interested in a monarchy, but instead possessed humility, sobriety, and innocence. George Washington was that kind of leader. He had no desire to be an emperor with all its pomp and ring kissing, instead, this humble hero wanted the American ideal to grow into every heart of every person that called this new province home.

This desire for a new start prompted many to grow sickened by the bloody excess of the French Revolution, and the lax morals of those moving westward whose crass and crude wilderness character was beginning to win the day over the fire of the Great Awakening.

Alcoholism mixed with burlesque and brothel life was starting to rule the core of every city that welcomed such exciting temptations which shadowed their mundane farm life. Farmers would come to town to do business and instead of bringing home their hard earned goods they would blow their profit on hookers and booze.

A new moral ethos was needed to guard the steps of this nation that once had its roots firmly panted by the puritans. So, religiosity was again called upon to lead this charge to help recapture what was lost, and to restore decency to our broken moral compass. Victorian sentiment seemed to be the fix.

Historian Nathan Hatch says, “The wave of popular religious movements that broke upon the United States in the half century after independence did more to Christianize American society than anything before or since.”

Victorianism, Collier explains, was built on the twin pillars of order and decency with self-control as its central tenet. The very idea of what it meant to be a gentleman changed. A man was no longer born a gentleman, which was a European idea, but became one through cultivation of proper habits. The goal of this new gentleman was to see that both his pride and passions were conquered.

With this new freedom to become what was once limited to those with better bloodlines, a Victorian man had ingrained in him a conscience which whispered to him- “work hard, improve yourself, resist temptation, and stay sober.” The Victorians tried to live out their Christian beliefs in a broader social context. Collier says “Victorianism was a “revolution in thought, attitude, and manner which touched virtually every aspect of ordinary life.”

Arthur Hunt says in his book The Vanishing Word , “Victorianism, then was a conscious ideal of order and decency initiated by three rousings: a reaction to the disorderly eighteenth century, a desire to act in a responsible manner in the face of building a new nation, and an attempt to live out religious experience in a collective context.”

Even with this new found foothold, the death of Victorianism was already underway. Industrialization, though promoted by the Victorian ideal, was choking the family and surrounding social community. Also, there was a flood of liberalization within religious institutions that once held to historical orthodoxy were now being swayed by all types of “new views” that crept in. This began to affect the pulpit, which in turn affected the church, which in turn spread new and heretical ideas about God and man which was felt from the intellectual community to the average Joe.

The tether that connected the initial seedlings of Victorianism to God was almost completely severed as man began to assume that this ideal could flourish in a vacuum where an almighty, sovereign God, who spoke to His creation through His word, was no longer necessary to sustain gentility among men. In other words, man starting with man and his word as the standard and example by which to live, work, and love, was beginning to view himself as his own master of his fate, commander of his ship, and captain of his soul. Unfortunately, as with every culture that forgets the one, true, living God who is not silent, man had no foundation, no reasonable premise, and no true motivation to improve his moral condition other than his social and financial capital, this always contributes to mans demise not help.

Looking at this period of American history is convicting for a reforming legalist like me. It turns the mirror upon my past and, at times, current folly, and it demonstrates how utterly bankrupt hard work, self-improvement, and sexual piety can be unless it flows from a well-spring of worship and adoration to the God who calls us to such a standard of walking worthy of a calling with which He has called us.

With that said, many attempted to use the name of God, the words of God, and the institutions that attach their identity to God, as a way and means by which their social ethics could have some legitimacy. I am convinced that this alone may have been the ultimate demise of Victorian ideology in all of its forms. Any time we attempt to use God and control people to promote our position, our name, or our lifestyle, we may as well dance around a golden calf and call it god, and we should expect the God of Scripture to give us the same response He gave those fools in the days of Moses. God was not and is not to be used as a spokesman to our movements, our politics, or our social status, because God is never to be used- period! Any movement that does not come from a place of worship, adoration, and love for the Ancient of Days, will never honor God, attract worshippers to our God, or glorify the Son which came to save of from such arrogant hypocrisy.

The reason I mention this severing from God as the ultimate demise, is due to the undercurrent of hatred and disdain many had for those hypocrites in their new found pseudo-gentility. To call individuals to a life of moral sobriety while partaking of those forbidden fruits in secret, always leads to a life of duplicity and ultimately self-loathing guilt. That guilt becomes fuel to the fire of your intolerance of others who are openly engaged in “big city” seduction. The only difference between those who called themselves “gentlemen” and those who did not, was not the lack of sin in the life of these “gentlemen,” it was the mask which was so obviously fake, and so common among Victorian types, which caused others to assume it was better to indulge and be honest, than to indulge and be a liar. So the city culture became country culture, and many decided to throw out the baby with the bathwater. If hypocrisy was to go, so was the morality that bred it.

The Victorian idea would have been the dominant worldview to pursue, and may have continued to influence our culture deep into the twentieth century. Had it not been for the lack of biblical foundation, the ebbing away at biblical morality, the new academic justifications for casting off biblical constraints, and the hypocrites which attempted to keep one foot in the water and one on shore, Victorianism may have continued to be an outworking of the protestant movement which found its roots in the reformation and became the founding roots of our American formation. Who knows?

I hope you can see that the definition for the Victorian gentleman, which was religious fervor, civil activism against vice, and an effort to control sexual impulses, is not unbiblical, wicked, or foolish if it is found in a love for God, a worshipful and adoring attitude towards Him, and a desire to live out of a heart changed by His gospel. It is when an idea becomes our god which we attempt to get others to worship that we find ourselves not only frustrated at our own inability to follow our prescription, we also lose our voice in a culture that still has gag reflexes to a movement like Victorianism and all its hypocrisy. I believe our culture is flirting with this same moral dilemma. I believe we are perhaps on our way to another reaction against “wilderness lifestyle” and “big city seduction.” I also believe our God has no interest in our attempts to become prudes when we remain separated from His life giving grace.

So why do I possess useless knowledge- like the name of every store across from every Victoria 's Secret in every mall in San Diego ? I guess there is a part of Victorian gentility which has found itself firmly planted in my spiritual and psychological makeup. My prayer is that whatever blush, whatever action I take to keep my head turned away from life size posters of almost naked supermodels, is not done out of a promotion of myself, my name, or my cause of moral sobriety, but rather it finds itself rooted in a true love and respect for those women which God has created in His image, an image that is not helped by Photoshop, good lighting, and silicone.

The men and women of our culture, which is also trying to throw out the baby with the bathwater, are in desperate need of the same grace which has so thoroughly saved me and countless millions. The last thing they need is another Victorian revolution promoted by upper middle class Republicans who care more about promoting George Bush, than they do Jesus Christ.

I pray we ask ourselves if we are trying to use God to promote our politics, our moral movements, or our neo-Victorian ideas. I pray that we never attempt to become Victorian gentleman, but instead we strive with all our passion to become God's man, in God's way, rooted in grace, lived in response to the gospel, and for the glory of His name.

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